Growth spurts

Over the weekend, the fact that my children are growing was particularly evident. Anya, while she still had her Terrible Fours moments, was unusually mature and helpful. She listened. She did as I asked. She helped. She cleaned her room, ate healthy snacks instead of begging for junk food, and -- what impressed me -- she anticipated my needs and met them before I even asked.

She's four.

Kai also impressed me with the things he is capable of. Like when he stood in his high chair to reach for the bird feeders drying on the counter. (Mini Mommy heart attack at that one...Anya never even did that!) When he signed "milk" while nursing: milk milk milk milk milk. When he snatched the food I was breaking into small, gummable bits and ate it like a toothed person, by taking bites out of it. When he let me know he was awake by sitting up and saying, very plainly, "Mom."

One day, I had a baby and a headstrong preschooler. The next, a toddler and a little girl.

I miss my baby girl, my tiny baby boy. My heart aches for her little pudgy fingers, his contented newborn sighs. But I am also really excited about this next phase. I will get to know my daughter as a person. I will get to watch my son take his first steps and learn how to...everything. I will get to watch them play together and become even closer friends.

I, too, am growing. I look at how much I accomplish even on an off day, and I see how far I have come. I am becoming who I was always meant to be, and it is amazing.

The sex in our words

I've been thinking a lot about the casual sexism in my life, as I've mentioned. One pet peeve that has arisen: When a group of women is communicating, and they feel the need to use the word ladies constantly.

Okay, ladies, what do you think about...
Do you ladies agree?"
Ladies, let's do this.

I'm not even talking about the stereotypical Okay, ladies, where shall we have lunch? No, it's worse than that.

Okay, ladies, how are we going to address this global warming issue?
What do you ladies think about those whack jobs up in Oregon? Shall we bomb them, or do they have a point?
Let's go feed some starving children, ladies!

Maybe it's just because I work with only women now, both in my day job and in my freelancing gigs, but I grit my teeth every time I see the word ladies. First of all, I don't think of myself as a lady.* But that's not the only reason. If we were men, would we feel the need to mention our gender all the time?

Okay, gentlemen, where shall we have lunch? 
What do you gentlemen think about... 
Do you gentlemen agree? 

Not bloody likely. Maybe in the distant past, but guys these days don't tend to talk like that. Though substituting dudes for gentlemen does bring to mind a voice somewhere between Keanu Reeves and Ashton Kutcher, so perhaps there is a precedent for gender-flogging amongst a certain subset of males.

I have not forgotten that I am female. Or that you are female. That we are all, in fact, female. I do not need a reminder.

And yes, I get that it's kind of special that we are all female. We've come a long way, baby, but we're not there yet. We won't be there until we can stop having stupid conversations about parental leave and periods and whether or not it might inappropriately arouse someone if I feed my kid in front of them. So yeah...best get comfy, because this is going to be a long and bumpy ride.

But I don't think we help matters when we fly the ladies flag in situations in which our gender does not, in fact, matter. For example, if I am editing a piece on breastfeeding, and I am a woman who has breastfed, my gender is relevant.** I bring a special knowledge to the piece, through my gender and experience. If, however, I am editing a journal article on the comparison of Drug A and Drug B, my gender does not matter a bit, and I see no need to call attention to it. (Actually, I see no need to call attention to it in the first piece, either, unless my expertise is called into question.) Nor does it matter when we are deciding what color font to use in a project, in which order we should all review proofs, or -- indeed! -- where we should consume the mid-day meal.

I am a woman, yes. But first and foremost, I am a person. If you would not say men, gentlemen, dudes, or some variation thereof if the gender composition of the group were flipped, and if you would not feel compelled to throw in people if the group comprised both genders, do not say ladies.

I read somewhere recently that people feel this same way about the use of you guys and guys. Which I found interesting, given that I wrote a paper in grad school on the use of you guys versus y'all. Back then, usage seemed fairly split, and appeared to depend largely on where a person was born. (Above the Mason-Dixon line, you guys; below it, y'all.) Usage seems to have shifted in recent years, with more universal use of y'all (though I have not done any sort of formal survey to test that theory); the article I read postulated that this shift is because people are put off by the inherent sexism of you guys. Which shocked me -- probably because I was born on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line. I have always preferred you guys. Partly because y'all sounds very Duke Boys to my ear;*** partly because another pet peeve of mine is when people misplace the apostrophe.**** But I have been trying to compromise by replacing you guys with you all -- or writing around the construction entirely.

As I type this, I can feel a certain subset of people bristling at having to think so hard about mere words. I sympathize. I used to feel the same way. But words matter. Not because I work with them for a living (of course I think they matter!), but because what we say reflects what we believe. Sometimes it's a subtle reflection, but it's always there. Change your words, change your mind.


*To me, lady evokes connotations of floral dresses and tea and repressed sexual morals. I'm not the most open person sexually, and I certainly try not to be crass, but I have been living in sin with my baby daddy and our two illegitimate kids for several years now, which appears to have been enough to get me cut out of Grandma's will. Prim and proper, I ain't.

**I am not really up to speed on all of the cis/trans stuff, so I'm merely addressing what I know, which is the dichotomy of physically male and female. Forgive my ignorance of the rest. I'm not judging or dismissing...I just don't know enough to speak to it.

***Does that date me? Okay, Britney Spears. Though that probably dates me, too.

****The contraction is of the words you all, not ya all -- the apostrophe replaces the letters ou a and thus comes after the y. Please, take pity on the punctuation nerd. ::twitch::

Shoulda coulda woulda

After spending much of last week trying to pull off several last-minute Christmas tasks, I finally stopped and asked myself why I was making myself nuts. Would the people I was killing myself to please even care if what I was doing did not get done? The answer, I think, is no. Would the absence be noticed? Again, likely not. And if it were noticed, it would at least be understood. So...why? Why am I doing this?

Because I felt I should.

Not that I need to, or even want to, but because I am afraid of what people might think if I don't.

Much of the pressure I put upon myself is self-inflicted. I have always held myself to crazy high standards, and I have not improved with age. I'm getting worse, actually.

So...I'm dropping the ball this year. As an experiment. To see if the world keeps turning -- and, when it does, if I can live with that.

Why Santa is bringing my son a doll for Christmas

Having kids has made me super sensitive to the things people say and do. The word "retarded," for example, grates my nerves worse than ever now. I know Anya's apraxia isn't exactly a huge developmental delay, and her speech is getting better all the time, but the fact is I've spent the past few years getting funny looks from strangers because my daughter is big for her age yet has the speech capabilities of a younger child. I want to slap people who use "retarded" to describe a long line or an irritating coworker or a new sitcom. Words can hurt.

I'm not innocent of the casual slurs, either. I tend to cast aspersions on the size of a man's genitalia based on the speed with which he departs from an intersection, and I have said "because he's a man" in response to questions about why my partner/my father/some random male acts against a woman's wishes. I'm trying hard to clean up my language.*

And yes, there are differences between men and women. Duh. But there is a difference between noting these differences and male bashing. Just as I am even more of a feminist since I gave birth to a daughter, I am ever sensitive to negative male stereotypes since I gave birth to a son.

I am not one for strict gender stereotypes, obviously. I am the breadwinner and the major decision maker in my household. My partner has long hair, and his favorite article of clothing is a skirt -- a manly skirt, but a skirt. So, you know, we're not all he-man/girly girl around here.

But I'm not sure how he (or the rest of the males in our family) will like the fact that I bought his son a doll for Christmas.

Look, the boy loves dolls. And his sister is not sharing hers. Most of her dolls are for ages 2+, anyway. So when he found a doll for babies while we were shopping for his sister, I bought it. It's cute -- a soft-bodied doll with a rattle in it. It's even kind of unisex -- instead of being dressed in pink, it's "wearing" an orange sleeper. And when he saw it, his little face lit up. So Santa got it for him, and anyone who can't deal with that can just take it up with Mama Bear here.

I am not planning on wearing a different parenting hat for my son than I do for my daughter. My goal is to raise children who are kind, honest, responsible people who are proud of who they are and who never feel ashamed to come to me about anything. That's a pretty universal message, I think -- no need for color coding. I do not believe that "boys will be boys" is a viable excuse for obnoxious, immoral, or dangerous behavior. The only thing I think not having a penis truly prevents my daughter from doing is writing her name in the snow without messing up her shoes. Sexual consent is not a lesson that only my daughter needs to learn; I don't want either of my children to rape or be raped.

And there's more. Always more. A million little assumptions and stereotypes and prejudices that make up our everyday experience. Each day I uncover another one.

I expect my son to do more around the house than earn a paycheck and do yard work. And if he provides me with grandchildren, I fully expect him to do his fair share of child care. Dolls allow children to pretend to care for a baby. So why shouldn't my son play with one?

If I don't teach my children to buy in to the sexist rhetoric I grew up with, perhaps they will have the chance to overcome it.

At the very least, if I can deal gracefully with the blowback from making unpopular decisions, I will be providing them an example of how to be true to themselves in the face of adversity.

*I am, in fact, far more concerned about slips like this than I am the occasional (or not so occasional) f-bomb. If the worst thing to come out of my child's mouth is the word "fuck," well, I'll take that as a sign that I win as a mother.

Somewhere to belong

One recent Sunday morning found me in my car, running errands. Usually I do not make it out of the house before noon, but on this particular morning, Anya was at her grandparents' and Kai and I had been up since dawn. He needed a nap, but wasn't going down without a fight. I needed to get something -- anything -- done. So we ventured out around 8:30 a.m. to deposit a check, do a little shopping, and (most importantly) drive long enough so he could snooze for a bit.

It was a beautiful morning. Cool, sunny, with downpours of amber leaves. It was neat seeing all of the people in their Sunday best walking into churches. I hadn't realized before just how many churches there are around here. And I felt a pang, just for a moment, that I didn't have a church to go to.

I am not religious. I don't even have much of a spiritual streak, though there are a few threads taking hold as I get older. My beliefs are blunt and matter-of-fact and tend to offend, however inadvertently, the religious people I have discussed them with, so let's just call me an atheist and leave it at that. There isn't a church for people like me, at least not one I'm aware of. There is no group I can join on a Sunday morning and talk about life and philosophy and love. No meet-and-greet afterwards. No brunch.

And until now, I never missed it. I'm not a joiner. In fact, I am your textbook introvert; send me to a party, and you'll find me in a corner reading and checking the time. (And how convenient is it that I can now do both on the same device?) Back in my single days, it was a pretty common occurrence for me to go all day without using my voice at all. And I was cool with that.

But now, I'm a little lonely. I participate in groups on the internet, and stay in touch with my friends (and "internet friends") on social media. I just don't have any face-to-face friends I see more than once a year (or three). And part of me misses that.

How nice it would be to have a place to go in which the other people there believed the same things I do. My kids would have people their own age to play with. We could make friends, and talk about things that matter, and find support from people who care about us.

We could belong.

Love and money

Couples often fight about money. It's been an issue in past relationships for me, so I understand. For instance, that was the main reason offered up to me by my wasband when we had a pregnancy scare and he asked me to consider abortion. He didn't want the child cutting into his spending money. (I wasn't pregnant, so it turned out to be a nonissue. And a year later, I wasn't married anymore, either.)

I've never been in a relationship in which my partner and I saw eye-to-eye about money. But with one brief exception, I've always had my own money, so it's not been as big an issue for me as it is for some. And in my current relationship, I have what may be the perfect scenario: I make the lion's share of the money, and my partner is more frugal than I am. (In most ways, anyway.) That means I get to make most of the big financial decisions, and don't have to rein him in much. We have had some silly arguments, mostly about how long leftovers are still good (I would never, ever bring home fries from a restaurant to eat later, for instance, and consider most refrigerated leftovers contaminated after three days). But for the most part, he trusts my judgement and doesn't blow my budget.

Now if we just had a little more money, we'd be in good shape. But who doesn't think that?

I won't say we don't fight. We do. Just not about money. It's...nice.

A long December

So it's December. Where my life usually veers wildly out of control. A poorly balanced diet and erratic bedtimes and extra freelancing and holiday-related craziness. This is the month that I send the rent check late and oversleep and totally forget important appointments. It's only the beginning of the month, and I am already dragging.

Our bootcamp theme this month is "Wrapping up 2015 with Great Balance and Poise." I've not done yoga once this month. Haven't meditated in weeks. Other than the walk I took on Thanksgiving, the only exercise I've gotten recently has been shopping. And shopping with my daughter is not the greatest example of my poise. (Especially when she runs off and hides in the clothes racks.)

In a way, I am glad for the disintegration of my routine. It usually means I slide into January head first, begging for some structure to my life. I hit the ground running January 2, and uphold my resolutions faithfully...oh, until March or so. But some of them do stick, so it's not a completely wasted effort.

For this month's bootcamp goals, I'm knocking out a lot of holiday-related tasks, but also looking ahead to those resolutions. My big three (exercise more, sleep more, eat better) will of course be on there. And working on my debt -- that's a biggie. But more and more, I'm beginning to realize that I need to rein in my gaze. Instead of always looking out ahead of me, I need to look at the ground I'm standing on. Make more time to do special things with the kids, even if it's just a walk to the local playground. Put a little more effort into making the house look nice; Anya can't stop talking about "Anya's beautiful house" since we've put up the Christmas decorations. Find a way to add a little more peace to my days.

It's so easy to hop on the work treadmill and fix my gaze on the horizon -- buying a house, getting a larger vehicle, getting married (yes, that is on my radar, though not an immediate goal). Plow through the days and weeks and months with little thought beyond my long-term goals. But the process of achieving those goals will be far more pleasant if I spend a little effort on the here and now. I just need to figure out how I want to go about doing that.

Flattery

The other night, after our shower, Anya was watching me brush her hair.

"No, like you," she said, indicating I should part her hair on the side, like mine. So I did.

"I should trim your bangs," I said. "Get them out of your eyes."

"No!" she cried. "No cut hair." And started flapping at me to drive me and my implements of hair wrangling back.

"Okay, okay," I conceded. "I'll leave you be."

As I put away my brush, I watched her carefully pick up a chunk of her bangs and position it so that it fell in her eyes. Just like mine is always doing, because I tend to put off trimming my bangs for at least a month longer than I should.

This child is such a little fashionista. I buy her outfits, and she mixes and matches the pieces to come up with even better outfits. I buy her shoes, and she pairs them with her outfits in surprisingly sophisticated ways. I don't often allow her to play in my makeup, but at 4 she is every bit as good with lipstick as I am. (Which, admittedly, is not saying much. But it almost always stays on her lips these days.) She shops for jewelry and handbags like other kids shop for toys. The fact that she wants her hair to look like my overgrown mop speaks more to her opinion of me than any words or gestures ever could.

Makes me think perhaps I should give her a slightly more attractive role model.

My little mirror

My daughter is speaking more, and more clearly, than ever. To my delight and horror, depending upon what comes out of her mouth. Because it's almost all me. Oh, there's some Daddy in there, and Mimi and Poppy, and a fair sprinkling of Hobby Kids. But most of it is me. And I'm not always pretty.

But sometimes she moves me to tears, man.

Like last night. Mimi and I were going shopping after work, and it was for Anya, so of course Anya could not go. But I couldn't tell her that, because Santa/childhood magic things. So I was upfront, but vague: "Mommy has to go somewhere with Mimi and run errands. I'll be back soon. You need to stay here, because reasons."

She was cool at first -- one lone tear, which is downright stoic for my living anime character. But then she called me into the bedroom. Patted the bed and told me to sit.

"Listen. Listen, Mom."

I smiled. "I'm listening."

"Remember that time when you went [somewhere...I didn't catch that part]? Remember? When you were gone?"

"Yes, baby. Mommy hates to leave you, but every so often, Mommy has to. I'll bring you a treat when I come back, though."

She put her hands on my cheeks and looked deep into my eyes. "I missed you, Mom. Really missed you. Don't go. Stay here and play with me."

No tears, no yelling, no lashing out. Just simple, quiet, rational discourse. From my 4-year-old. About how she can't bear to be away from me -- even with the promise of a treat.

Note that she wasn't begging to go. She wasn't objecting to being left behind; she was objecting to being away from me. Nothing like a coating of Mommy Guilt to make an outing complete.

And she did it not by using my worst behavior against me, but my best. The mommy I wish I always were: Calm, gentle, thoughtful.

Oh, Santa was good to her last night. Yes, indeedy.

Remembering

It was on a bright day of midwinter, in New York. The little girl who eventually became me, but as yet was neither me nor anybody else in particular, but merely a soft anonymous morsel of humanity --this little girl, who bore my name, was going for a walk with her father. The episode is literally the first thing I can remember about her, and therefore I date the birth of her identity from that day.

-Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance

While I do agree that we are what we eat in the physical sense, in terms of personality I think we are what we remember. I love the above quote because it reminds me of my first memories. A thousand little slices that made up my earliest days.

I have memories of injuries that extend up to, but do not include, the moment of injury itself. My memories then pick up a while later. (My memory of sticking a paper clip in a light switch, for example, ends with "a real bright light," to quote the homeless guy from Terminator. It picks up with me on the couch seeing colored halos around everything.) My brain has thoughtfully edited out the pain, while leaving enough to let me know that it freaking hurt and to never do that again.

My favorite early memory, though, is of a sunny morning when I was around 3. I'd snuck outside early, while the sun was low enough to shine directly in my face, to play on my swingset. As I pumped my legs, I discovered that squinting my eyes created a halo of circular rainbows around my vision. I can remember it all so vividly, even now: The warmth of the sun on my eyelids, the cool air rushing past my scabbed knees, and the rainbows in my eyes.

Age and knowledge have since revealed those rainbows to be merely the sun striking my eyelashes. But I prefer to think I carry tiny rainbows with me wherever I go, and if I squint my eyes right, they will return even on the gray, rainy days.

Fluidity

A fellow Clogger recommended this article, and it's given me some things to think about:

http://themindunleashed.org/2015/11/the-art-of-fighting-without-fighting.html

Love this article. It's good advice to keep in mind when my daughter is pushing my buttons. My favorite quotes:

It is useless to fight against people’s rigid ways, or to argue against their irrational concepts. You will only waste time and make yourself rigid in the process. The best strategy is to simply accept rigidity in others, outwardly displaying deference to their need for order. On your own, however, you must work to maintain your open spirit, letting go of bad habits and deliberately cultivating new ideas. –Robert Greene, emphasis mine

My daughter is very rigid. And I deal with it badly because her rigidity directly affects me. It's important to me to not fight with her, though, so I need to start working on my own fluidity.

Years ago, I dated a guy who loaned me some books on the Tao Te Ching. The part that stuck with me was how being soft is more powerful than being hard; the water will, over time, wear away the rock.

I have been working on my softness, but it's easier said than done. Particularly when I am already stretched thin and my child digs in her heels over stupid things. Because we are both bull-headed control freaks, apparently.

In these moments, I need to learn to flow. Make her laugh. Indulge the whims I can. Or just get over myself. In the immortal words of Bob Seger,*

As you step out in the night, take a lesson from the trees
Watch the way they learn to bend with each breeze.

My second favorite quote from this article is this:

Like E.E. Cummings said, "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

This feeds nicely into my Be Awesome goal. And it's an example I would very much like to set for my children.

In the coming year, I want to focus on these concepts. Maybe I'll have more luck with them than I have been with getting up before dawn.

*"Little Victories." Because everything goes back to either Road House or a Seger song in my mind.

The people in my neighborhood

One of the unsung benefits of working from home is that it gives you insight into a world you miss while you're at the office: Your own neighborhood. All the people that keep things rolling while you're away. I'm coming to appreciate these people in a way I never did before.

My mail carrier has a smile and wave for everyone. When my daughter was a toddler, she used to love waiting in the driveway around mail delivery time, and our mail carrier never disappointed her. When I worked in an office, I couldn't have picked my mail carrier out of a lineup.

One day recently, we didn't get the mail out soon enough and missed pickup. On her way back past (we live on a dead-end street), she noticed our flag up and did a U turn to collect our outgoing mail.

I've heard bad things about our trash collection company, but aside from the fact that we never get pickup on holiday weeks (even though our collection day is Thursday, which is almost never a holiday...sure, that makes sense), I have no complaints. Once, R didn't get the can to the curb in time, so the truck passed us. R ran out to set the can out, and one of the collection guys got out to help him manually empty it into the truck. Another morning, some trash fell out while our can was being emptied. The collector (same guy) hopped out to pick up the trash and pop it back in our can before moving on.

These are little things, sure. But they're things that keep my household going. Small acts of consideration. Evidence that people in often thankless jobs do, indeed, give a crap.

With all the negativity we are bombarded with on a daily basis, I need moments like that. And if I worked in an office, I'd miss them.

I'm thankful for the big things, sure. Job, home, family. But you can't overlook the power of little acts of kindness.

Childhood is weird

I've been thinking a lot about the things we do to kids lately. Like Santa. I almost didn't do Santa (for reasons I have discussed before), but I'm glad I changed my mind. Santa is a lot of fun. For me, anyway. Well, the Christmas morning part. The rest...hm.

We took the kids to see Santa (aka HoHo) at the mall this past weekend. Didn't get pics taken, because I want the kids in their Christmas outfits for that. But Anya wanted to say hi. They're friends, you see.

Anya walked right up, sat on his lap, and they had a little chat. HoHo was in a walking cast, so of course she had to check on him.

Kai has watched all of this from the safety of my arms. At one point, HoHo looked up at him, and Kai reached for him. So I placed Kai on HoHo's knee.

Kai reached up and gently brushed HoHo's beard. HoHo looked down at him and smiled.

"Well, hello there," HoHo said.

Kai's face crumpled, and he began to cry. I immediately rescued him. Too soon. I figured as much. I didn't take Anya to see HoHo until she was 2, and even then she cried the whole time.

Then HoHo asked Anya what she would like for Christmas. She shrugged.

"A loaf of bread?"

 She nodded, a small, unsure smile on her face.

"No," HoHo said. "You don't want bread! You want a toy, right? Maybe a doll?"

A more enthusiastic smile this time, and vigorous nodding. But no elaboration -- which is unusual for my gregarious girl. She was starstruck.

They chatted for a few more minutes, then he gave her a candy cane and they said goodbye.

All the while, I pondered how odd the whole scenario is. Each year, we take our kids to stand in line so they can, for a few brief moments, sit on the lap of a costumed stranger and tell him what goodies they would like to receive. The kids are supposed to be totally cool with this, even though in any other context the costumed stranger would be accused of pedophilia. We then have the opportunity to pay a ridiculous (really, it's highway robbery) sum of money for a photograph of the occasion. How does this make sense again?

Life is weird, I guess. At least HoHo is good weird.

Old and improved

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but my daughter has varying yet specific uses for the terms "old" and "new."

a) The usual: "Mommy, this car is old. You need to buy a new one." (Because it has a leak we can't fix. And to her, it is an old car; when I bought it, she was in utero. But she says this about everything. Why fix something when you can buy new? How very American of her.)

b) New equals young: "Mommy, you old. Anya is new." (Anyone older than, say, 10 is old.)

c) Old equals sick. "Mimi is new! I can stay at her house!" (She loves sleepovers with my mother.)

I get a kick out of her telling me I am new, but of course that is only in the context of illness. In all other contexts, I am so very old.

I would like to say I shrug this off, but when actresses younger than I am are hawking old lady cream, it gets to me. Especially since I am starting to see some signs of aging. Probably not so many as I think, but this face is not my face, and I can't blame it all on the breastfeeding baggage. That merely erased my cheekbones. No, this face has more underchin than my face. It is developing undereye bags at an alarming rate. (And I already had dark circles to deal with.) My eyes themselves are red most of the time -- not sure if that's age or allergies, but it doesn't help. And then there's the lingering melasma and fine lines, which I had almost made peace with, dammit. Add my crazy hair, and half the time I'm not sure who the heck is looking back at me in the mirror.

I have total mom bod. I will have mom bod until I finish breastfeeding, which as far as I am concerned is nowhere in the near future. (No periods vs an extra 15 lbs...gee, I wonder which one I should choose?) I have postpartum hair, which looks extra weird to me because I colored it. (I like the color...it's just still a shock to have hair this dark. Even with no gray, my hair wasn't quite this dark. Or maybe it was just shinier?) In short, I look in the mirror and am mildly disgusted by what I see.

I guess it's not necessarily bad, any of it. I just don't look like me.

I don't feel as old as I look in the mirror, though. Which makes it that much worse.

I know I just need to adapt. Find some decent concealer, maybe pick a new hairdo, get some clothes that are a little more flattering to my new figure. Stop wishing I looked like I used to and start working with what I now have.

But man, I miss me.

Fall mornings

Some of my favorite mornings are those in which the house is chilly because we forgot to switch the AC to heat the night before. This only happens in the fall, and that's why I like it -- because it's a fall thing. If I were to wake up in December to a house that was 67 degrees, I would whine. But in October or November, I'm happy to wake up with a cold nose.

No, I don't really understand it, either.

One theory is that I love fall so much because I hate summer. I'm happy to wake up cold because for far too many months, cold was a distant memory. But I also remember feeling this way as a child, when I lived someplace with more evenly balanced seasons and thus did not have such strong feelings about summer. I even kind of liked summer. Probably because triple-digit days were a rare occurrence.

Thinking back on those childhood fall mornings brings up a wave of memories. Nothing specific -- no people or events, no particular outfit,* just a feeling of what it felt like to be me as a child. The dusty smell when the heat kicked on. The crisp smell of the air outside, tinged with the smoke of burning leaves. The chill in my chest and nose when I breathed in. The warmth of the sunshine through the chill. Soft flannel and warm sweaters, cold ears and fingertips. I loved them then, and I love them now.

It occurs to me, looking back, just how many fall mornings I have experienced. And, if I am indeed at or near my halfway point in this life, how very many fall mornings I have yet to look forward to. 

Yet somehow, it doesn't feel like enough. It will never be enough.

*Family joke. When I was a child, I had a near-perfect memory of pretty much everything that had ever happened to me, down to what I was wearing at the time. When I started to lose details in these memories, I lost the outfits first. So I would describe an event or a memory to my parents, then ask them what I had been wearing. They found this extremely amusing. I didn't truly see the humor in it until I became a parent myself.

Anya's new friends

In case it hasn't come across loud and clear here, I am a total helicopter mom. I was an overprotected child, but compared to my childhood, my kids are wrapped in (sanitized) bubble wrap and locked away in Rapunzel's tower. I may not be the most protective mom in the world, but I'm certainly an also-ran.

And I make my daughter crazy.

There's an awesome park near our house with a 2-story slide. I say awesome not because I play on the equipment (I'm too afraid of heights for that nonsense, though as a kid I'd have lobbied to live there), but because my child adores it. And I don't really mind it; it's got that nice foam rubber stuff on the ground, shaded picnic tables, a mister for miserably hot summer days, and decent cell reception. As far as parks go, it's pretty swanky. Just don't ask me to go down the big slide. Or even climb up on the walkway. I'm getting wimpier as I get older.

My hesitation is that the play area is marked for ages 5-12, and my child is not. She's 4. Big for her age, but clutzy like her mom. Also, big kids don't really tend to take as much care with my little miracle as I'd like. They think she is a stupid baby, and even those that don't physically play rough with her end up hurting her through their indifference. I think mean thoughts at these kids who blow off my beautiful, sweet, friendly daughter, but otherwise what can I do?

Burn. I sit there and burn. For Anya, and for all the kids who were ever snotty to me. Which was kind of a lot...I wasn't the most socially adept child.

So when we pulled up to the park the other day and it was full of middle school kids, can you blame me for insisting we go to a different park?

I made it up to her, though. We returned to Awesome Park the next day. There were still older kids there, but they were not as old.

Anya sees these kids and shouts, "Look -- it's Anya's new friends!"

Oh, my heart.

Of course, that is not how it worked out at all. The kids thought she was a stupid baby and wouldn't play with her.

But all was not lost; some of her true friends showed up, and a good time was had by all. Because while I am often right, I am not always right.

And that's a good thing. I like her view of the world better. I'd probably be happier if I thought of strangers as new friends.

Letting go

There is a dried yellow rose on my dashboard. It is from my grandmother's casket. On the drive home, it perfumed my car, while the sun dried it to perfection. I need to get a box to keep it in, because it's time to put it away.

Time to let go.

I did not have the best relationship with my grandmother. She could say things, unthinking or not, that cut to the bone. And did, often. At least to me, and to my mother. I've heard anecdotal evidence that we were not the only victims of her sharp tongue. On multiple occasions in his life, I heard my grandfather tell her to shut up -- necessarily so.

Yet so many people have good memories of her. She was kind to them. Generous with her time and her money. And, honestly, she was kind to me. She never doted on me the way my kids' grandparents dote on them, no. But she never missed my birthday, or Christmas. Her efforts to give me gifts as a child were often misguided, but she did try. She also gave my children generous gifts. One of her last acts was to send my mother a birthday card.

I want to hang on to the good things she did. Holding a grudge against her for the things she said to me makes my stomach hurt. I do not want my last memories of her to be bad ones. So I have deleted the last email she sent. Soon, I will put away the last card she sent, and this beautiful flower that does nothing but remind me of seeing her body in that coffin.

I did not respond to either the email or the card. For that, I am sorry. She was so lonely. But I could not for the life of me come up with a nice way to respond to the harsh messages they contained. So I put it off. Too long.

I did not want to respond in kind. Because I suspect we were more alike than she ever dreamed. I see a resemblance in her personality, my father's, and mine. A tendency to say things that aren't intended to be hurtful, but sometimes come out that way. A blunt, duty-oriented approach to life. A preoccupation with things being fair that leads to incessant comparison (I have since abandoned the concept of fair, but I used to share this obsession, so I get it). We may not have been peas in a pod, but we were certainly cut from the same bolt of cloth.

I know that my words and actions are sometimes misconstrued to be hurtful when I intended nothing of the sort. I know my father loves me and wants what is best for me, even if that doesn't always come across in his words and actions. Is it so far-fetched that my grandmother may have felt the same?

It's what I choose to believe, anyway. I like us both better this way.

So I am letting go. Of the hurt. Of the resentment. Of the guilt. Of the might-have-beens. Of her.

Goodbye, Gran. I love you. Rest in peace.

The only thing that stays the same

As I type this, my grandmother is dying. My last living grandparent. I don't know how to feel about that, about her. We are not close. Probably never could have been. I am sad for so many reasons that don't really involve her. Which feels, let's be honest, really shitty. I try not to be shitty, but I also try not to lie.

I do feel bad for my dad, though. That's his mom. He lost his stepdad not quite a year ago, right before his birthday. Before that, the last person he lost was his father, back when he was about Anya's age. That's a long, long time to go between losses. I can't imagine what he must be feeling right now.

I haven't gone so long. I've gotten better about dealing with pain, but pain comes in all sorts of varieties, and they all must be dealt with. Mine doesn't feel as important as his, so I will set mine aside for now and do what I need to do for him. I can deal with me later.

In recent months, my grandparents' home was demolished. I can't even imagine how that must feel for Dad. I know it guts me, and I never lived there. But it's been a part of my life since I've had a life to be a part of. It was a touchstone, a constant, in a life that hasn't offered much in the way of either. And it's gone now. I was dreading seeing it already, but now I know that I will most likely see it in the context of my grandmother's funeral, and it's almost more than I can bear to think about. In the space of a year, they and all that they worked for in this life are just...gone.

Loss is a part of life. I know the drill by now. But I am sad. And I wanted to take a moment to just feel that sadness before I go on with my day. I know from past experience that I won't get much opportunity for quiet reflection later on, and if I don't feel these things in the moment, they will blindside me later, when I am least expecting it.

Edit: I just learned that she passed this morning. I still don't know how to feel. But I don't have much time to worry about that right now, because I need to prepare for a road trip. 

Speaking of the passage of time

So I just realized two things:

• I will need reading glasses, sooner rather than later. Not just for reading 4-pt type on an iPad. (You're so jealous of my job right now, I know.)
• My preschooler, who is unusually silent, is not hammering pushpins into the wall or flooding the bathroom or coating the fridge with lip balm,* but is instead calmly listening to music with headphones on.

I'm old.

It's a weird feeling, seeing evidence that I am getting older. I honestly felt older at 25. I'm in better shape now, and better health. I'm more emotionally stable (except for the weird Mom-crying at every bad thing everywhere). Sadly, I'm not more financially stable, but that's what taking maternity leave in the US does to ya. Most of all, I am far more hopeful about the future. In my 20s, the future was uncertain and scary. It's no less certain now, but it looks like a lot more fun.

Kids age you, yes, but they also make the years more enjoyable.

As for me, I have never really had a problem with my aging. I had to explain to R the other day a set of candles we saw that said "29 again?" -- like me, he can't imagine wanting to be 29 more than once. I had no problem turning 30, or 40. However, I do think I will milk 42 for all it is worth. Mom did; it was her favorite age. And it is the Answer to the Ultimate Question, after all.** So while I am anticipating the future, I need to start making plans for ways to celebrate my 42nd year on the planet.

Speaking of birthdays, it's my mom's birthday today.*** Happy birthday, Mom!

*Not random, fictitious examples.

**Yes, I am one of those people.
***She's moved on from 42; she is now happily 66, and ready to retire.

Bring on October

I love spring. The air feels full of hopeful anticipation. The light is softer, the air warmer. Everything is buzzing with life. I am not an outdoors kinda girl, but spring makes me want to be outside. It's my second favorite season.

Autumn is my favorite. It feels funny to say that, because it's a season of...well, dying. Mold. Rot. But it's a pretty rot.

I love the colors. The smells: crunchy fallen leaves, dusty heating vents, cinnamon spice, squash. The crispness in the air. The blindingly blue skies. Heck, even the dreary rain is prettier in autumn, against a backdrop of amber and russet trees. I love that the endless, blazing days of summer gradually grow cooler, shorter. Nudging us to head inside, bundle up, eat good food, drink something warm. I love sweaters and flannel and blankets and boots. Just...everything.

Two signs of fall that I eagerly anticipate each year: My neighbor's tree changing color, and the reappearance of Orion. I haven't seen Orion yet, but my neighbor's tree is looking a little gold around the edges. Puts me in an autumn frame of mind.

Fall is a time of celebration around here. My parents' birthdays, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Since I procreated with a goth, Halloween is a month-long celebration. (He would say it's a way of life.) I stretch Thanksgiving into a month, as well, because I like thanks, and food (though not, of course, turkey). Which leads up to December, the Month of Christmas. From October 1 until January 1, it's one long party at my house. (Okay, not really. But we have lots of decorations.)

I've come to recognize that I've fallen into certain annual patterns. August is my month of self-reflection and mental housekeeping, and has been since my 20s. (I just have to take a break in the middle to celebrate the birth of my first child. As is befitting of her nature, that takes at least a week.) September is a month of doing -- all that navel gazing in August gets me itching to take action. So I make lists and schedules and set goals and push myself. Or at least I plan to. Then October rolls around, and life fills up with creature comforts. What didn't stick in September typically rolls over to January, and becomes my resolutions.

This year, I'm entering October with more momentum than I've had in a while. I'm starting to feel like I have a handle on things. Which is probably a sign that the bottom is about to fall out, but I'm happy to ride the wave of optimism til it crashes.

Bring on fall!